25 Things

Since this seems to be the trend, here are my 25 things...
1. I have a metal rod in my leg and screws and pins in various other parts of my body
2. My first cat was named Casey, but I liked to call her Maggie because I thought she was magical
3. I once found a photograph of Katherine Elliott Creech dressed up like a devil in the woods behind my house
4. I am probably the only person to ever be in the freshman facebook at Tulane for 2 consecutive years with the same picture and different hobbies
5. I have a blanket named Howard, who was the host of the PBS show NOVA, and also owned the chain of Howard's discount stores
6. Howard was married to a smaller yellow blanket named Harold. Harold was a woman.
7. At one point in my life, my friends and I assigned animal likenesses to all of our friends and still refer to them as hippos, squirrels, bunnies, lambs, etc.
8. I have a stuffed animal that I still sleep with, and for Christmas this year the only thing I asked my dad for was for him to perform some corrective surgery for years of disfiguring dog attacks
9. My dad performed the surgery, and puppy now has new eyes and a nose!
10. I count when I run
11. I actually count when I walk too
12. Today is my oldest nieces birthday, she is TWELVE! (this list was actually written on the 27th)
13. I am still good friends with most people that I have lived in the same house with (probably not very good grammar there)
14. I am kind of weird about spelling peoples' names correctly
15. My dog's feet smell like fritos
16. My dog's ears remind me of cinnamon crispers from Taco Bell
17. I am going to Philadelphia in two days!!!
18. I've never felt like I was doing the right thing as much as I do now (life direction-wise)
19. I still read Anastasia Krupnik books, as well as Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume
20. One of my toes reminds me of a turtle. It's my favorite toe.
21. I love cooking and organizing things
22. I love washing dishes by hand, and sweeping with a broom and dustpan
23. I love my dog, my family, and my friends very very very much!
24. I have never been to Europe
25. Yes I'd like to visit the moon, but I don't think I'd like to live there... (you'll get it if you know it)

It's Been A While...

I haven't been updating, but I have been exercising, which is good. I have also been trying to keep up with my reading and school work. Tomorrow I am leaving for Philadelphia to have some fun adventures with some old friends... I am excited! I am not excited about the fact that it's going to be very COLD up there, but I am super excited to have fun adventures and see my friends. It got cold here today, but nothing compared to what the weekend in Philly will be like. But at least if I'm going to be cold, I'll know that I would be cold here anyway. So yeah, I had better get to packing my things!!!! Will post pictures!

Progress....

I should probably be taking notes and photos of the progression of my kitchen, but I'm not. Maybe I'll start tomorrow. I got home today, and it looked like a train had barreled through there, but by the time I had gotten some work finished in the guest room, they had it all cleaned out- I mean there's still dust and crap all over, and I don't have a kitchen ceiling at all now, but all of the crap that came down magically disappeared. I kind of think it wound up in the garbage can, because I went to put it out this evening and I could barely roll the dang thing to the curb. So I'll get on the ball tomorrow and get some photos for everyone to see. Later!

No Longer First Day of School Eve...

So today was the first day of skool! I bought my books and two new highlighters. Ahhhh, the joy of new books and highlighters! It was good to see everyone's faces again after our long and luxurious break, but I had 2 new teachers today and I don't know how much I'm going to like or dislike them. I think I will like them, but they appear to be the lecture-only type teacher, which is reaaalllly hard for me to do. I have a hard time sitting in front of the television for an hour without doing something else... so listening to someone talk will probably result in me losing my patience on a regular basis. I have another new teacher tomorrow, and then a repeat from last semester... not my favorite class from last semester, hopefully that is due to the class content rather than the instructor. I suppose that time will tell.

I ran when I got home, which was a great start to the semester. I just need to make it a habit THAT I DON'T BREAK this year. Also, the old ceiling is down and now we're trying to figure out what to replace it with in the kitchen... tomorrow they will move my attic access from the kitchen into the laundry room, which will result in my being able to move the refrigerator to a better position. With the kitchen being a wreck, I eagerly accepted an invitation to dinner with JK & Green Bean. Dan met us and we had a delightful dinner that was made even more delightful when Dan treated us all. Totally unexpected, and really nice. Thanks Dan! So that's it for the first day of school, I'm going to go peruse my new books!

Skool!

First Day of School Eve

I really like Eves. Since I was a kid, I thought that every day worth celebrating had a similarly exciting eve. Probably because I was born on Christmas Eve, which turned out to be an exciting day for me since it was my birthday and all. So I used to also celebrate Birthday Eve on the 23rd, and I still feel a twinge of disappointment if my sister doesn't wish me a happy B.E. So tonight is First Day of School Eve... Tomorrow marks the first day of my second semester of grad skool. I continued to go to my internship throughout the break on account of I like it so much, but reality smacked me in the face yesterday when I was called upon to lead a group and reminded of some work to get done. I must admit I had settled in quite nicely just drifting around doing stuff that didn't require much to challenge me in the areas that need the most challenging. I'm fortunate to have the B.S.E. (best supervisor EVER) who encourages me and is always there to help me if I falter, but I can't help getting super anxious before hand. Thank goodness for Zoloft!

There is also a new intern at my internship, which also causes me mild anxiety. Part of me thinks that is ridiculous, but another part of me feels like it's normal to feel a little bit anxious about a new person coming in, especially since she will be there more often than I will. But I get them for a whole year, so I feel super fortunate to have had the last semester. I guess I'm a people hog. I get a little bit possessive. I haven't had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the new intern (as today was only her second day), but she seems to be quite competent, especially in areas where I feel incompetent. I'm sure I can learn a thing or two from her, perhaps I'll have to suggest a joint assignment for us.

So. Stay tuned to hear how the semester looks after day 1!

Happy Birthday Baby Connor!

Today Baby Connor turned 3! 3 years ago today, I went over to help Amy B. clean out her closet. Mid-way through she retreated from the closet and returned several minutes later. We continued a bit more, she retreated again, returned again. At this time Jason came in and noticed a strange look on Amy's face. "You okay?" he asked. "Yeah. I think my water broke though." So we panic running around the room trying to figure out what we should do. Eventually we hopped into the Millenia and rushed off to the hospital, and shortly afterward Baby Connor entered the world.

This morning I did a delivery for hospice, went to the office to get a little work done, then went to a birthday lunch with some friends. Afterward I went shopping and bought a ridiculous amount of new clothes. But I really needed them, especially considering the splitting of the pants yesterday. So I now have clothes to wear besides jeans and t-shirts. woohoo!

When I got home, I took Annie for a walk and ran into my friend's aunt. Turns out my friend's mom took a spill earlier this week AND BROKE HER BACK. This friend is a friend that I grew up with, I was at her house EVERY weekend. So I feel very helpless in that I am not close with this friend anymore, but I want very badly to do whatever I can to help make this time easier for them. She flies in from out of the country this evening, and I left my phone numbers with her aunt to pass on. Hopefully she'll allow me to do something to help them. God, I have got to keep this in mind the next time I feel invincible when moving furniture, climbing on unstable things, lifting stuff, etc.

After the walk, I went over and watched Baby Connor open his presents and had some ice cream cake. It's been a very rollercoastery day. The highs of shopping, lunching, birthday celebrating interspersed with lots of hope for my friend's family.

My photo will be of a dress I purchased today, which you can find here. Well, it kind of looks like this, but the dress is cheaper on the website than in the store, which leads me to believe it's a little different. Oh well, it's cute!

Winzday

Today I didn't do too much. I visited my mom at her store, raked my yard, ripped my pants, attended a staff meeting, (where I'm not technically staff, but they still fed me birthday cake and sang to me...) ran a bit, made and ate some turkey jambalaya, thought about painting, brought my painting stuff in from the car, thought about painting some more, then decided to do some crossword puzzles instead. I've got some exciting travel plans set up for the end of the month, and as you may have read in yesterday's post, I made a quick trip to Dallas toward the end of December. That's a lot of traveling for a low-to-no-income gal, and I feel really lucky! School starts exactly one week from today, which is mildly exciting. I have strong hopes that I will keep up with my work this semester and not feel rushed about everything, but I kind of think that this is the way it's going to be until next May when I'm done. I will have to start researching other locations to do my internship next year, which sets me off in a mild panic every time I think about it.

Last weekend JK and I headed down to NO for the weekend. Jen spent the weekend with her sister, me with Mystery Guest. Friday night we met Jen and KK out in Metry for a few drinks before retiring post-Sugar Bowl and after meeting up with Les, Kate, Rebecca, and Charles at Parasols and a quick visit to some other folks. Saturday night we went out to dinner at Dick and Jenny's to celebrate my birthday. I had the duck. Mystery Guest had the Awesome Red Meat with the Fat on Top of it. I normally love duck, but the Awesome Red Meat with the Fat on Top of it was better. Afterward we strolled down to 45 Tchoup and watched the end of the Chargers/Colts game and then to the Rendezvous to see some more folks. Sunday we had breakfast at Slims and then sat with Kate for a bit before I headed home. JK rode home with her sister, but we did see her and KK at Parasols while we were visiting with Kate. So that's that. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about New Years or my visit to Dallas. For tonight, I'll leave you a clue about where I'm going come Jan 29th and what I'll be doing. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Harder Better Faster Stronger

Maybe 2009 will be a year for -er. Do bett-er in school, work hard-er to reach goals, run and exercise more to become strong-er and fast-er. Or maybe it will just be a year in which I title my posts based on remakes of songs. So I've been missing for a while, but I'm back now. Harder, better, faster, stronger. Later.

The image is taken from my trip to Dallas to visit Walker. We are at the Galleria. I bought some postcards, Walker bought some jeans. I don't think that John bought anything.